Here’s an excellent live version of the Don Beyer “blue cup song,” from earlier this evening in Arlington. Around 200 people attended the event with Howard Dean; more video to come – including speeches by Beyer and Dean – when it uploads to YouTube. Meanwhile, enjoy the song!

1. “He was our campaign treasurer, so there’s some loyalty there; I believe you help the people who helped you.”

2. “Don and Megan are two extraordinary human beings…first of all, they’re great parents, which matters a lot.”

3. “The most important thing of all is their values. Now we can just lay out his positions on the issues, which I think are great and are incredibly progressive and that’s what we need. I actually don’t judge people solely on their positions. What this country needs is people who will stop dealing in hate and anger, and start working with others who we may disagree with, and Don Beyer has the capacity to do that, which he’s had for a very long time.”

Other comments:

*Income inequality is a threat to the entire American idea that you can work hard, play by the rules and make something of yourself and give your kids a better life. “If 80% of the people haven’t had a raise for 20 years because of the machinations of Congress and politicians and failed institutions like Wall Street. If 80% of the people believe – and they’re starting to believe – that you could play by the rules and the deck is fixed against you, then America dies, because the core of the American dream is the possibility – not that being rich is bad, we don’t believe that – but the core of the American dream is that some day we can be like that if we work hard enough and if we listen to what our parents have to say and if our values are right. So what is being destroyed by the Koch brothers and others is not simply campaign finance and skullduggery in politics, what’s being destroyed is the core of who we are as Americans. And that core means that it is the individual vote that matters, not how much money you have. That was what the Supreme Court destroyed in McCutcheon…”

*”People want to respect politicians, and they can’t respect politicians unless they stand for something. Don Beyer is not afraid to say what he stands for. He just did, and you can take to the bank that that’s how he’s going to vote when he gets into Congress.”

*”We are plagued by a whole group of people in Congress that have put their party above the interests of their country. When you are willing to shut down the government to prove a political point and harm the credit rating of the United States of America. When you believe that the way to win is to have less [sic] people vote, then you would be more comfortable with Ukrainian politics than with American politics. Seriously, if you are part of an effort to restrict people’s rights to vote in the United States of America, then democracy is not a value that you espouse…We need to support our democracy, which means we need people like Don Beyer and not people like – it’s such a long list – Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, the House of Delegates in this state, which made it harder for ordinary people to vote. These folks ought not to be in politics, because they have not valued the core of democracy…it’s not ok to win by taking away people’s right to vote…and have the Supreme Court of the United States of America – Earl Warren must be turning over in his grave – and these are small people on this court; they may be smart, but they are small, tiny human beings with wizened souls, and we are going to replace them when we get the third Democratic president in a row.”

*The most important issues in this campaign are: 1) “We have to build a new American economy;” 2) “We have to do something about climate change, it is the great challenge facing our children;” 3) “We have to take care of our federal workers.”

*”Last year there were 11,078 gun homicides in America…Someone has to finally stand up to the National Rifle Association.”

*”I’m not used to quoting but Jeb Bush, but last week he did say, we need to look at so many American immigrants who have come as an act of love…We need to create a real path to citizenship for these hard-working Americans.”

*”I’m so proud of our Attorney General and of hard-working Virginia political leaders like Adam Ebbin, who for years have worked on marriage equality…”

*Beyer’s “role model” is Howard Dean for a long list of reasons (see video), including the “power of long-term thinking.”